An archetypal American breakfast

I arrived home the other day to find an answering machine message from my father. The message began with a heart-breakingly bad rendition of the Rolling Stones’ “Satisfaction” belted out with the confidence of a man who has spent so much time driving in his car either listening to the radio or talking on his cell phone that he is no longer able to distinguish between the two. “I can’t get no! Satisfaction! Hey son, it’s your pop! I’m going to be in town for a few days! Think about breakfast tomorrow! With your brother and sister! Love you! Bye!”

So we went to breakfast at my father’s favorite Truckee Meadows breakfast joint, Jack’s Coffee House in Sparks.

Jack’s should be instantly familiar to anyone who has seen P.T. Anderson’s film Hard Eight (which is, incidentally, one of the best movies ever made in and about the Reno area). The opening scenes take place at Jack’s—and the coarse realism the location was meant to evoke is perfectly attuned with its actual environs—though in real life, it’s a lot less gritty. Jack’s is everything you could possibly want for an archetypal American breakfast: delicious pancakes, savory eggs, whopping-big slabs of home fries, friendly waitresses, charming bits of Americana on the walls. For an all-American café, Jack’s is exceptionally well-cast.

We took our time deciding what to order, carefully examining the somewhat cluttered menu—loaded as it is with quite a number of different breakfast combinations. The menu also proudly displays Jack’s independence from restaurant chains via a disclaimer lambasting “fast food.” There’s a “Hearty Eaters” section with double portions and a senior’s section, which my somewhat confused 19-year-old sister was not allowed to order from. The senior menu is characterized by smaller and slightly less cholesterol-heavy portions. My father, in what was but one of his many blatant attempts to provide a catchy phrase for this review, noted that a senior menu seemed appropriate considering the “high ratio of blue-heads and grey-heads all around us.” My father’s head is, where it is not totally bald, quite grey.

I ordered the “French Toast Buster,” ($5.39), four pieces of the eponymous breadstuff, an egg (over-easy) and two sausage links (variations with bacon and ham are also available). The French toast is good, but the pieces are rather small. Fortunately, our waitress was accommodating, even to those of us who impulsively ordered additional items partway through the meal. Therefore, I discovered that the pancakes (a short stack: $3.39) at Jack’s are quite a bit better than the French toast. They are flavorful and, as my father noted in yet another heavy-handed attempt to immortalize himself, “Those ain’t no sissy pancakes, neither!” He said this in a loud, indiscernible accent that I assume was intended to sound like some sort of lumberjack or mountain man but in reality sounded vaguely like Grover from Sesame Street.

The coffee, a key factor in a coffee shop experience, was mediocre. It wasn’t very strong, but it didn’t taste too acidic, like the vinegar-water many places serve. When I complained about the weakness of the coffee, my father suggested that I add cream—which doesn’t make any sense—but rather than tell him this, I simply said, just as John C. Reilly said to Philip Baker Hall in the opening scene of Hard Eight, "Hey—thanks for the tip, Mister Helpful."